Case Study: Architectural Coatings for Istanbul's New Airport

Today, construction of Istanbul's new airport, named "Istanbul New Airport," is still underway, but it is planned to become the world's largest airport—a major project requiring architectural and visual excellence. The coatings on roofs and facades protect the underlying structure and give colors a long lifespan.

Design Structures Protecting a Vision

Airport coatings must provide special conditions. Often they are the first and last thing a passenger sees in a country, and the structure must last for a long time. Therefore, paint systems must have high durability and exceptional visual properties. The millions of dollars invested in such projects are protected only if the highest standards are met. The American Architectural Manufacturers Association's high-performance specification standard AAMA 2605 is one of the highest standards available for organic coatings on architectural aluminum panels. It is prepared for products offering superior performance and has become the standard to be followed for the new Istanbul airport. This visionary project, designed by architect Grimshaw & Partners, is considered the largest project in the history of the Turkish Republic and was established on an area of 76.5 million square meters in the north of the city. The annual passenger capacity is planned to be approximately 200 million passengers flying to more than 350 destinations. To apply approximately 700,000 m² of ceiling and facade coatings, Sistem Metal (Kemah Group), a customer of Beckers, was selected as the aluminum coater. A project of this type requires meticulous planning and superior product quality. Coatings must be formulated to withstand UV radiation, harsh weather conditions, and pollution. Each layer must be of the correct thickness; otherwise, color differences may appear between panels. If the primer is chosen incorrectly, serious delamination problems can occur. The fundamental property of PVdF binder to be transparent to UV light means that when PVdF coating is not properly distributed or when dry film thicknesses are thin, UV light easily passes through the outer layers and can damage the primer layer when exposed to sunlight. Once the primer begins to suffer damage, it can easily deteriorate and lose adhesion to the metal, which can cause the entire coating system to undergo film delamination within a few years.

PVdF Coating for the Most Demanding Conditions

Beckers has a long history of supplying coated aluminum for airport roofs and facades worldwide; therefore, finding the right paint system was straightforward. Although Beckers' facility in Turkey had only recently opened when the project began, the collaboration with Sistem Metal (Kemah Group) from the start was executed perfectly. We supplied a total of 70 tons of paint to Sistem Metal (Kemah Group), which was used to coat approximately 700,000 m² of ceilings and facades. The paint system preferred for such projects is Beckry® Fluor, a 3-layer PVDF with a total thickness of 34 μm. Beckry® Fluor has superior weather resistance properties for use in the most demanding conditions and has proven itself through challenging temperatures ranging from +40°C in summer to -40°C in winter and various exposure tests applied over more than 40 years. Beckers is a pioneer in integrating paint technology, based on an extremely stable PVdF resin technology unaffected by UV damage. A minimum of 70% polyvinyl fluoride (PVdF) resin binder provides exceptional weather resistance performance. An acrylic-modified resin also completes the binder composition. When the coating dries, the two binders combine and form a binder composite system. The PVdF component in this system resists atmospheric degradation throughout its service life, while the acrylic adhesive assists with pigment processing and coating adhesion to the metal surface. Additionally, we use specialized correlation software to predict and determine the UV opacity factor in advance for all colors produced. This UV factor provides essential safety in formulation and color analysis.

The Real Success Factor: Close Customer Collaboration

For such a large project, providing high-performance properties and durability, including superior resistance to ultraviolet rays along with exceptional resistance to dirt and staining, is certainly very difficult, but beyond these, the real value we offer is our customer service, on-site technical support, and fast deliveries. We won this major project just two years after our new facility in Turkey opened, and since then we have worked very closely with Sistem Metal to ensure excellent product properties. At Beckers, we believe that R&D is conducted not only in the laboratory but also in the field together with our customers. To achieve the most durable coating, application on the coil coating line is equally important as the coating formulation itself. Beyond ensuring maximum coating adhesion and corrosion resistance performance of the Beckry® Fluor system, proper cleaning and chemical treatments on metal strip surfaces before primer application are very important to deliver the correct coating thickness. Fast delivery, on-site technical support, and our deep expertise in major airport projects make us the right partner for Sistem Metal. Their statement validates the quality of our products: "Beckers is very professional in its approach. From the very beginning, their technical team integrated perfectly with ours. They acted like true partners, trained our employees, and helped us set up a mixing unit at our factory," says Rıdvan Balıkçı, General Manager of Sistem Metal – Kemah Group. Nicolas Sabatier Managing Director Turkey-Greece-Jordan-Macedonia-Serbia Beckers Group